Bible Reading Group

You know one can confirm in it's adulthood, right?

I am interested in this as well. Would we try to read the whole bible or only certain parts?

The whole, I guess, that's why it will be a long journey.

good intentions but this is going to fall apart after a couple dozen posts.

infinite summer always sputters out before a group actually finishes it--it ends up as one guy finishing it up by himself, which isn't a reading group at all.

For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves,
"Short and sorrowful is our life,
and there is no remedy when a man comes to his end,
and no one has been known to return from Hades.
Because we were born by mere chance,
and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been;
because the breath in our nostrils is smoke,
and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts.
When it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes,
and the spirit will dissolve like empty air.
Our name will be forgotten in time
and no one will remember our works;
our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud,
and be scattered like mist
that is chased by the rays of the sun
and overcome by its heat.
For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow,
and there is no return from our death,
because it is sealed up and no one turns back.

"Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that exist,
and make use of the creation to the full as in youth.
Let us take our fill of costly wine and perfumes,
and let no flower of spring pass by us.
Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither.
Let none of us fail to share in our revelry,
everywhere let us leave signs of enjoyment,
because this is our portion, and this our lot.
Let us oppress the righteous poor man;
let us not spare the widow
nor regard the gray hairs of the aged.
But let our might be our law of right,
for what is weak proves itself to be useless.

"Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,
because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions;
he reproaches us for sins against the law,
and accuses us of sins against our training.
He professes to have knowledge of God,
and calls himself a child of the Lord.
He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;
the very sight of him is a burden to us,
because his manner of life is unlike that of others,
and his ways are strange.
We are considered by him as something base,
and he avoids our ways as unclean;
he calls the last end of the righteous happy,
and boasts that God is his father.
Let us see if his words are true,
and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; for if the righteous man is God's son, he will help him,
and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.
Let us test him with insult and torture,
that we may find out how gentle he is,
and make trial of his forbearance.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death,
for, according to what he says, he will be protected."

Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray,
for their wickedness blinded them,
and they did not know the secret purposes of God,
nor hope for the wages of holiness,
nor discern the prize for blameless souls;
for God created man for incorruption,
and made him in the image of his own eternity,
but through the devil's envy death entered the world,
and those who belong to his party experience it.

I think it's best to do a daily reading of just a few chapters. There's going to be plenty to talk about and it's short enough that people won't get burned out. There also won't be a lot of excuses for people not being able to keep up, all we would have to do is set aside 15 minutes per day to read two chapters.

In any case I'm all in on a study group. I have a lot of notes from my own studies so I can't wait to share.

Better than this is childlessness with virtue,
for in the memory of virtue is immortality,
because it is known both by God and by men.
When it is present, men imitate it,
and they long for it when it has gone;
and throughout all time it marches crowned in triumph,
victor in the contest for prizes that are undefiled.
But the prolific brood of the ungodly will be of no use,
and none of their illegitimate seedlings will
strike a deep root
or take a firm hold.
For even if they put forth boughs for a while,
standing insecurely they will be shaken by the wind,
and by the violence of the winds they will be uprooted.
The branches will be broken off before they come to maturity,
and their fruit will be useless,
not ripe enough to eat, and good for nothing.
For children born of unlawful unions
are witnesses of evil against their parents
when God examines them.
But the righteous man, though he die early, will be at rest.
For old age is not honored for length of time,
nor measured by number of years;
but understanding is gray hair for men,
and a blameless life is ripe old age.

I'm in

Doesn't that happen at twelve years of age or environs? I have a niece who's a Lutheran and she was confirmed at twelve.

No Veeky Forums would-be group will ever agree on one translation.

What would the translation matter?

Yeah this sounds great if it will work.

If you were to memorize one of the gospels, which one would you choose?

You're better off remembering the rosary, it's practically a bible study in itself. Any one gospel isn't going to give you the whole story.

The Bible is legitimately terrible. I'll get a lot of flak for that but it is. It's an incoherent story with subpar writing and the only reasons people read it is because they're in the religion or because it's so ingrained in the minds of people now thanks to western culture.

It's also all bullshit.

Then discussions may not make much sense if we talk about different translations. The topic will come up sonnet or later and the usual havoc will ensue.

*sooner

Ingrained in the minds of people? Christianity laid the foundations of the western culture as a whole so what you are saying doesnt really mean anything. Im not religious, neither am I being forced to read it but I am going to do it anways because its arguably the most important book ever written.

Read the lutheran bible when I was younger at my grandmother's house [I am aware many people think it sux] and read the king james new testament over a long period of time in segments and now I am about to start reading some secondary literature on the NT. How difficult is it for someone to integrate themselves in to the Christian world if they weren't born in to it/ are coming in to it at a reasonably late age? I'm not certain I want to, and as I say I amn't an expert. Just wondering in case that is the path I want to go down in the future.

Don't bother with idiots.

I was 28 or 29 when I started converting. There's nothing odd about it. When I was in RCIA most people were older than me.

No I turned 18 a couple of months ago. I go to an Anglican church which really stressed the theology of Christianity and thinking for yourself rather than just accepted what is given to you. For this reason most people getting confirmed were around 16-20 ish.

>already reading Genesis
Let's do this shit lads

same
im in

We should divide it up into half weeks, with a book every half week. For example we should read Genesis by Wednesday, Exodus by Sunday, etc etc.

Genesis is massively underrated among modern readers, it's seriously a harrowing book

Going at such a breakneck pace is a good way to lose people

I think it's bullshit in terms of facts, but it's an amazing collection of ancient writings and a lot of it is fun to read (Chronicles and Leviticus can fuck off though)

That's a good way to ensure nobody reads the material.

The pace should be fairly slow imo, with flexibility. Remember the aim is to motivate people to read, we could all read at our own pace but that wouldn't be a reading group.

Reading Proverbs at the moment. The introduction about lady wisdom was awesome and there's a few jems but it's mostly shit like

>Doing a bad thing is bad
>But doing a good thing is good

Do Christians really think this is some amazing font of wisdom?

I don't think this is very viable because most Veeky Forums users will give up as soon as it goes from interesting stories to boring Jewish rituals.

Seems the consensus on the poll is to go between half a book to a full book per week.

>Do Christians really think this is some amazing font of wisdom?
If there weren't religious texts espousing these ideals, what would people conclude to then?
What if there's no God in this world or religion?
Well one thing I think would happen is everyone pursuing their own self interests, the superman was nietzsche put it. But I don't think people can make their own values or we've already seen in history what happens when people try to.

Nah, W&P reading group had a shaky middle but we finished strong, and I think Count of Monte Cristo picked up and finished strong too but I wasn't in that so don't quote me

The reading group renaissance we had over christmas proved reading groups can work as long as they take it reasonably slow and have weekly or bidaily rather than daily threads.

This. Weekly is best.

I agree. It's something to look forward to. It being a daily thing gets tedious, and those with free time will form an abusive cluster with their own memes and circlejerking and will alienate others, as happens in just about every general.

What is the translation we will be using?

No offense but that's fucking retarded, collections of proverbs exist in every culture in the world, they're just collected knowledge. The sayings existed before they were written in Proverbs, they came from people, God didn't send down the book fully formed and everyone suddenly realised being a fool is bad.

The entire Bible is crazy ambitious for a reading group though. I think it should be selected books of it.

We should just do our own weekly parsha and if that's successful go from there.

I've been meaning to read it anyway. I'm all for it.

Guys! We have to organize.

Which translation is everybody using?

im done with school in a week. was planning on reading it.
which edition?

OP has basically done pic related.

Ok, to keep things simple how about we do the books in canon order, and earmark some of them we'll skip. I think we'd lose a lot of readers if we did Leviticus for example.

As for the translation, I think a list of acceptable translations would be better than enforcing a single one. I think ESV, RSV(CE), and NRSV are similar enough to all work.

And I think doing the reading by a certain number of chapters per week is best, because book lengths vary wildly. It would also allow us to get through several shorter books in a week like the epistles of John.

Congrats bro

KJV
is that even a question?

>A church of Christ, who died so that all may be washed of their sins and reach salvation through him, has a vetting process

I assume you're talking about RCIA. A "vetting process" would imply that people are rejected. They're not. The purpose of RCIA is to educate people because faith is worthless without an understanding.

IT'S MONDAY PEOPLE. I HOPE YOU ARE ALL READING LIKE YOU SAID YOU WOULD.

>christcucks are going to try and push their propaganda through this

Reading as strictly Veeky Forums.

I read yo mamma as strictly lit and she still worships my cock, bitch

Are we doin this or what lads

I am interested

can't wait for this reading group to fail

I'm a Jew, can I join? If you want, we can do a side by side comparison of the Tankah and the KJV Bible.

I don't see any reason why not

I don't think anything has been decided yet. We should just do roughly a book per week to keep it simple, and skipping Leviticus of course.

Yes, it's a question that deserves a better answer.

So we will discuss Genesis on Sunday?

can we do kjv?

What other translation can we use, if not this one?

so like uh, when do we start? going to need official dates here.

I don't know what the OP is doing but if he doesn't take charge I'll start weekly threads every Monday starting today. What do you think of this? I give two weeks for Genesis because there's a lot to talk about with this book and it's worth taking our time. I figure a week would be fine for Exodus since the building of the tabernacle takes up a good chunk of the book. I wouldn't expect people to actually read Leviticus but it's worth skimming over so I included it in the same week as Numbers which is fairly short. Deuteronomy is another short one so I imagine a week should be fine.

Genesis May 29 - June 11
Exodus June 12 - June 18
Leviticus/Numbers June 19 - June 25
Deuteronomy June 26 - June 2

We may as well just start with the Pentateuch and see how it goes.

Genesis seems a little excessive, don't you think?

He's right that there is a lot to discuss and it would be the first book so gives newpeople time to jump in

Lets do this

Sounds good to me. I know these books super well and a handful of others (Gospels, Job, etc) but haven't delved much into a lot of the OT

congrats on memeing yourself into mindslavery

Let's see how it goes

whats the point of reading the bible if you don't read the whole thing?

or any book for that matter

protip
you are a pleb

>We should just do roughly a book per week

This would severely underserve books like Genesis, Psalms, and Isaiah and give them the same amount of attention as books like Philemon and Obadiah